


The Miraculous Pipe

by butforthegrace



Category: Fairy Tales and Related Fandoms, The Miraculous Pipe (Fairy Tale)
Genre: Fairy Tales, Gen, Murder, Retelling, Russian Mythology, Sibling Rivalry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-17
Updated: 2011-05-17
Packaged: 2017-10-19 12:31:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/200868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butforthegrace/pseuds/butforthegrace
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alionushka has always been jealous of her brother, their parents' favorite, to the degree that she is willing to become violent to get what she wants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Miraculous Pipe

**Author's Note:**

> I was reading through my copy of _Russian Fairy Tales_ (pre-Communism stories collected by Aleksandr Afanas'ev) and came across "The Miraculous Pipe", and wanted to retell it. The dialogue is nearly identical to what's in the story. The last line is one of many variations on a common ending to Russian folktales. Alionushka and Ivanushka appear a lot in Russian stories, and Alionushka is a diminutive of Aliona, which is a variant of Elena.  
>  Written in June 2010.

Once there lived a priest and his wife in a little house a ways outside Moscow, in a small village. They had two children: a son, Ivan, whom they called Ivanushka, and a daughter, Elena, whom they called Alionushka. Ivanushka was the younger child, twelve years of age, but his parents’ favorite. He was a handsome boy who people loved and were sure would grow up to do great things.

Alionushka was of marrying age, but had received no suitors, for although she was a very beautiful girl, she was also very unkind. Many in her village had been the victim of one biting word or another, and so they avoided her. She was sorely jealous of her brother, for though she worked hard to win her parents’ favor, he was lazy and yet the favored child. She couldn’t understand it; she didn’t see her own unkindness.

And yet she did have friends, and one day, they all went to the woods to pick berries. Alionushka, told this as one passed by her house, went to her mother and said, “Mother, mother, I want to go to the woods to get berries; all my little friends have gone there—“ though indeed her friends were not so little, and also of marrying age.

“Go,” said her mother, and Alionushka had gone to the door when the woman continued, “and take your brother along.”

Alionushka glared at the window, where she could see her brother sitting under a tree, enjoying the sun’s fierce kisses upon his face. “Why? He is so lazy. He won’t pick any berries.”

“Never mind, take him!” said her mother, getting a pitcher and a box for her children to take with them. An idea came to her: “And whichever of you gathers the most berries will receive a pair of red slippers as a present.”

No more did Alionushka need to hear: she took the pitcher and box from her mother, and went outside to wake her brother. “Come, lazybones; I’m going berry-picking, and Mama has bade me bring you, too.” Ivanushka shrugged and got up, and so the brother and sister went to pick berries.

They came to the wood, where Alionushka saw her friends picking berries, laughing and enjoying themselves. She gave Ivanushka the pitcher and ran off with the box to her friends, having planned with her brother to meet each other in two hours, before the sun went down.

Alionushka spent the next hour picking berries with her friends, but eating them all; then her friends went home and she drifted further into the woods to find berries. Ivanushka, meanwhile, picked and picked, and put each berry in his pitcher, and ate none of them.

Alionushka’s and Ivanushka’s paths crossed just before the appointed time. “It’s good that we meet now, sister,” said Ivanushka. “Look; my pitcher is full.” Alionushka did look, and became envious, for she had eaten nearly every berry she picked, and only two remained in the box.

“Brother,” she said, “come, let’s rest a while before we go home; let me pick the lice out of your hair.” So sweetly did she speak that Ivanushka saw nothing wrong with waiting until dark to go home, and he lay on her knees. It took only a few minutes for the boy to fall asleep.

The trees rose up around the pair, heightened by the setting sun. They cast their shadows over the siblings, and over the sharp knife that Alionushka took out. Almost tenderly did she draw it over Ivanushka’s throat, and she smiled to watch him die. Finally, she would be the favored child; she would have the red slippers and more besides. She got up and dug a ditch, elation adding to the strength in her hands, and buried her brother when the ditch was deep enough. She wiped her dirt-covered hands on her dress, took a last, satisfied look at her handiwork, and picked up the pitcher with the berries. The box she left hidden in a bush.

She came home and proudly gave her mother the pitcher of berries. “Where is your brother, Ivanushka?” asked the priest’s wife as she took the pitcher.

“He straggled behind me in the woods, and must have lost his way,” answered Alionushka, pretending concern. “I called and called him, sought and sought him, but could not find him anywhere.” She lifted her hand to wipe at one blue eye, and her mother frowned with concern.

“Come, eat your supper; we’ll wait for your brother and let you sleep.” The red slippers were entirely forgotten, it seemed, by the priest’s wife. Alionushka supposed that they could wait until tomorrow.

So she ate and went to bed. The father and mother waited for Ivanushka a very long time, but he never came back. Life went on for the murderous sister, but her parents grew more anxious with each day.

Meanwhile, on Ivanushka’s grave there grew a clump of tall and very straight reeds. One day, shepherds went by with their herds, saw the reeds, and said, “What excellent reeds have grown here.” One shepherd went and cut off a reed as they rested, and made himself a pipe. “Let me try to play it,” he said to a friend, and put it to his lips. The pipe began to play a song:

 _Gently, gently, shepherd, blow_

 _Else my heart’s blood you will shed._

 _My treacherous sister murdered me_

 _For juicy berries, slippers red._

“Ah, what a miraculous pipe!” exclaimed the shepherd as the others got up from their rest and began to move on. “How clearly it speaks! This pipe is very precious.”

Another shepherd said, “Let me try it,” and the first gave it to him. He put the pipe to his lips and played as they walked; it played the same song! They gave it to a third to try, and again it played the same song.

The shepherds discussed the pipe excitedly until they reached the village. They stopped near the priest’s house. “Little father,” they pleaded, “give us shelter for the night,” for the sun would soon go down and they had no time to get safely to another village.

“My house is crowded,” said the priest, reluctant to entertain a group of surely unruly men, and reluctant to expose his daughter to them.

“Let us in!” cried the first shepherd, who had made the pipe and was now holding it. “We will show you a marvel.”

The priest, realizing that they had come through the woods, let them in. When all were inside, he asked them, his wife listening anxiously: “Have you not seen anywhere a boy called Ivanushka? He went to pick berries, and all trace of him has been lost.”

It pained the shepherd to answer this to the clearly distraught man, but he said, “No, we have not seen him—but we cut a reed on our way, and what a marvelous pipe we made of it! It plays by itself.” The shepherd took out the pipe as the priest glared at him, and played, and it sang:

 _Gently, gently, shepherd, blow_

 _Else my heart’s blood you will shed._

 _My treacherous sister murdered me_

 _For juicy berries, slippers red._

The priest stared at the pipe, and asked, “Let me try to play on it,” his voice trembling: for the pipe sang with a voice so like his missing son’s… He took the pipe, and it played its song:

 _Gently, gently, father, blow_

 _Else my heart’s blood you will shed._

 _My treacherous sister murdered me_

 _For juicy berries, slippers red._

The priest’s heart leapt. “Was it not my Ivanushka who was murdered?” he said, tears beginning to gather in his eyes. He called his wife: “Now you try to play on it.” She put the pipe to her trembling lips, and it played its song:

 _Gently, gently, mother, blow_

 _Else my heart’s blood you will shed._

 _My treacherous sister murdered me_

 _For juicy berries, slippers red._

 __The priest’s wife began to cry. The priest took the pipe, building anger drying the tears in his eyes, and asked, “Where is my daughter?”

They found Alionushka hidden in a dark corner, where she had fled when she heard the pipe’s first song. She was shaking, but tried to control herself when her father yanked her to her feet. “Now, play the pipe,” he told her.

“I don’t know how,” she lied.

“Never mind, play.”

She tried to refuse, but her father spoke sternly to her, and made her take the pipe. He bent her fingers around it and guided it to her lips. It had no sooner been put to her lips than the pipe began to play by itself, damning the girl:

 _Gently, gently, sister, blow_

 _Else my heart’s blood you will shed._

 _You treacherously murdered me_

 _For juicy berries, slippers red._

 __The tears spilled from Alionushka’s eyes as she confessed everything, feeling shame for the first time. Her father, red-faced with his rage, drove her out of his house.

“Never return here,” he thundered, and slammed the door. The last traces of the bloodied sunset faded from the sky as Elena sat down on the road alone and sobbed.

And that is the end of my tale.


End file.
